


reincarnation through fire ~ i wish i knew what i was burning

by recoilshipping



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 20:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20458661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoilshipping/pseuds/recoilshipping
Summary: what he says: takeru good boiwhat he writes:  takeru morally compromised boi





	reincarnation through fire ~ i wish i knew what i was burning

**Author's Note:**

> minor violence and injury warning.

Starting school in a new town wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. Other children always seem to leave him be, entertaining each other by rough housing, the horse play. The kinds of bruises and scrapes gathered from this, he learns their shape. Band-aids. Ointments. Antiseptic. Saliva, if a kid was feeling especially cheeky. 

He joins in a group tussle one day, it’s thrilling. He goes home and runs water over his new wounds.

His grandfather practicing against training dummies is always a spectacle to behold. He sits cross-legged on the wooden floor as his eyes follow the old man’s form. “If I fought like that, I’ll never need a band-aid again,” he thinks to himself. Rising to his feet he begins to mimic the motions. Clumsily copying along. It earns him a hearty chuckle, and an inquiry if he wants to start training for real.

“Yeah! I wanna fight good too!” 

Later when he’s supposed to be asleep, he’ll hear his grandmother ask why he’s learning to fight. She’s worried, though Takeru can’t guess why. 

“It’s good that he’s finally showing interest in _something_,” his grandfather responds. The conversation moves out of earshot and becomes the quiet murmurs that rock his consciousness adrift.

It’s better that he doesn’t hear the discussions of their guilt. 

But there’s other games at school that are made and Takeru doesn’t see the appeal at all. Like the kids who play with their plastic utensils by the electricity sockets. At first he turned away. he couldn’t bear to look. It’s never metal in their hands when they laugh and dare each other to hold the cutlery to the wall. 

He kicks one in the head, the one closest to the wall holding a spork to the outlet.

The brat tattles on him, because of course he did. _“It’s what you get for kicking him,_” he tells himself, sitting in the school’s office as phones ring and tears fall. And soon they turn to him to ask what he has to say for himself. His kicked classmate, his teacher, the gossiping office staff, his grandparents on one phone line and the parents of his peer on another. They wait in anticipation. 

What should he tell them; that he did it. that he didn’t do it. That the other kid was wrong wrong wrong or about how much electricity hurts. What would their reactions be? He sees his grandfather’s muffled silence, wanting to speak chidings at him for his behavior but holding his tongue at the behest of his grandmother. His grandmother’s eyes gaze and glance away as if that can mask her disappointment and sadness. 

In the end, he says nothing. But the silence declares him guilty when there’s no other explanation for his peer’s injury. 

A few days later in the kitchen. a sizable pile of fruits and vegetables sit on the table, and his grandmother sits on a chair, poised, knife in hand, putting the peeled food into containers to be preserved and occasionally slicing off a bite or two. 

She directs him towards an empty chair and slides him a knife and a basket, like she expects him to jump in and keep pace with her.

He sits quietly and the workings of the knife against peels and stems mix with the white noise of summer coming from outside the window. 

“You don’t know how to use a knife, do you grandson.” A statement more than it is a question.

“Mom and Dad only let me use vegetable peelers.” he mumbles.

“That’s okay. Watch closely, and I think you’ll pick it up quickly.”

Small hands curl around a paring knife’s handle, and he grabs from the basket in front of him. He doesn’t even know what kind of fruit it is, or where his grandmother had gotten them all. He brings the blade to its skin anyway. Mystery food is better than no food, he reasons. 

It’s not long before he feels something sharp. Blood seeps out from a shallow cut on his finger.

The first-aid kit had been waiting on standby under the table. His finger patched as he carries on fumbling through peeling fruit and vegetables, 

You learn what kind of injuries you get, using tools for their intended purpose. It takes a number of years for him to get that message she was trying to teach him. Even if she doesn’t approve of him fighting and she’s worried about his safety, there’s something she wants to ensure. If he ever did get caught up in something, that he live.

Because his grandparents don’t want to lose him again. 

**Author's Note:**

> i imagine takeru is about 7 or 8 in this fic. and also that he didn't meet kiku until middle school in case you were wondering.


End file.
